


All Love Is

by astudyincastiel



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Angst, Internal Monologue, M/M, Rhys Hawke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-07
Updated: 2015-03-07
Packaged: 2018-03-16 16:13:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3494738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astudyincastiel/pseuds/astudyincastiel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three years is a long time to think about anything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Love Is

**Author's Note:**

> Written 4 years ago. Hey, hey, current stuff. Wow.
> 
> I dunno...Does this make sense?

What I remember the most is the sound of his footsteps as he left the room. Sometimes I think about how ridiculous that is; how could I possibly hear him, barefoot on the carpet, over the din of the fire? Maybe I just imagined them; their finality and the distant closing of my front door. The heavy silence that followed, kept me company for the rest of the evening, that was not imagined.

He'd said he felt like a fool, but I've never been able to figure out a way that could possibly be true. If either of us is to be the fool, then it's me. All my efforts, all my...good intentions, had led to this, and I should have known it would end this way. He has never failed to point out his views on mages, repeatedly, in fact. Perhaps I took it as a challenge; I always have been, according to my brother, rather full of myself. I convinced myself I could make him see I wasn't like the magisters of Tevinter, that I cared, that I wanted to help him, that...not every mage lusted after power; there are far better things to lust over in this world. I was sure that I couldn't fail.

And I was patient, and considerate, and everything he did only encouraged me to keep trying. To not listen to the voice in my head that persistently tried to remind me it was a bad idea. How could I when he continued to be so generous with his gifts; smiles that were reserved only for me, unexpected laughter. The way he would sit close to me as I taught him to read; a secret I was sure he had never shared with anyone else. 

That night...For the first time since I had come to Kirkwall I felt as if I had accomplished something. Were I to ever actually say that, I doubt the response would be favorable, as appearances would certainly disagree with the statement; all the lives I had changed, for better or worse, the house that I live in, all speak of great deeds, but he was the only thing that I *wanted*.

He said there was no way I could possibly understand what it was like to have something you wanted so badly one moment, and then for it to be gone the next, but he was wrong. If I could have told him, if I had thought it would make a difference, I would have, but he was gone before the words could form, and I knew it would have only brought an argument. Why couldn't he have trusted me to help him again, as I always had, as I always would? I would have found a way if he'd let me, if that was what he really wanted.

Afterward, I found it hard to face him. I found it hard to face any of them; the person they expected me to be, the person I expected me to be, was a hard mantle to wear. And I didn't want their sympathy, or their questions. I simply wanted it all to just...go away. I'd been foolish in a way I hadn't been since I was young, and the less said about it the better.

It was almost a relief when heartbreak gave way to anger; how dare he go on as if nothing had happened, how dare he wear the crest of my family as if that strange loyalty would make up for the pain he'd caused. But even anger fades, after awhile, and despite everything I couldn't stay angry with him, just as I couldn't stop loving him; his awkward attempt at comforting me after my mother's death only made it that much harder. Many times over the past few years I have wanted to ask why he wears that crest, what he believes it means, or what he thinks it means to me, but...I never do; the topic still seems too sensitive. For me, at any rate. I suppose I'll never know.

Since that night, it has been three years. Three years of fighting beside him, being his friend, and trying to forget the past. Three years of waking up alone, though it's not as if I've been lacking offers; Anders is, surprisingly, even more persistent than Isabela, but in the end I always balk at the idea of moving on, and not simply because the man is possessed, and has gotten progressively moreso lately. Things would be easier, perhaps, if I didn't spend time with Fenris nearly every day. If he weren't here, my feelings would wither away into nothing and I could move on, as is natural.

But he is here, and I could no more turn him away than I could my own family, even if it means spending a decade suffering through his absence. So when he tentatively asks me to come with him to meet his sister, when he stands there looking so lost, so afraid that, after everything I'll refuse him, how can I say anything but 'yes'? If there's any chance of them being together, of her helping him to remember, of him being free and happy, then I'll do it, even when it makes me feel worse. I suppose, in the end, that's all love really is, isn't it?


End file.
